On the surface — and when it comes to games played on ice, the surface is all-important — the Sharks had all the requisite ingredients for a whopping good hand-wringing.

There was the false hope generated by their quick and easy 2-0 lead over the Florida Panthers. There was their inability to supersize that lead into something more meaningful. There was their foot unaccountably coming off the accelerator, as the Panthers insinuated themselves back into the game.

Finally, there was the overtime goal that snaked its way past San Jose goalie Thomas Greiss, which sent a sedate Saturday afternoon crowd murmuring out into the blinding sunshine.

"We let it get away from us," coach Todd McLellan said. "That's the inconsistency in our game right now. We reversed the trend."

That trend had seen the Sharks rally in three successive third periods for wins ranging from impressive to, "Wake the dog — he's going to want to see this." So the discussion turned from those confounded slow starts to that dadblasted lack of late-game intensity.

It's always something, right? It has to be — it's written right here in Lord Stanley's Guide to Self-Loathing. Only in this case, it's based on a sketchy premise.

For starters, this overtime was decided 4-on-4. Come the playoffs, overtimes are skated 5-on-5. And with the Sharks at this point, it's all about how they might fare in the playoffs.

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But here's the biggie: One of the most consequential plays in Saturday's game would likely have been rendered inconsequential in the postseason — that being the fight that cost the Sharks' Manny Malhotra most of the third period.

Saturday? It was a job well done. Malhotra came to the defense of Joe Pavelski, who'd been rubbed hard against the boards by Florida's Jason Garrison.

"Manny stepped up for his teammate," McLellan said. "We didn't mind that one bit."

But it cost him 17 minutes in penalties. Thus, the Sharks were without the services of their second-best faceoff artiste and (typically) a member of their energy line. In his absence, McLellan had to shuffle his lines. And the Sharks, who won 71 percent of their faceoffs in the first two periods, won just 38 percent in the third. During which, it bears noting, Florida scored the tying goal.

It wasn't the perfect outcome for the Sharks. But it's the kind of thing you live with during the regular season, when the hockey code stipulates that the outcome of a game is less important than the eye-for-an-eye message you send your opponent — and anyone else who might be watching.

So what Malhotra did was commendable in March. Come late April, it isn't an option. Not in a close game, anyway.

"We just debated that," McLellan said. "If somebody takes a liberty, what's the right response? Manny's a very, very valuable player. We trust him a lot as a coaching staff. His teammates appreciate what he does on the ice. So to lose him for 17 minutes in a game like this hurts. But, there's also the line that they cross, and the fact that he was prepared to step in for a teammate, and we appreciate that."

And the interesting thing about that is, the Sharks had a Manny moment just 11 days ago, when Montreal's Maxim Lapierre sent Scott Nichol hurtling into the boards. The retaliatory response that night was to use the incident as an emotional fire-starter. Sure enough, the Sharks scored the tying and go-ahead goals in the final 7:28 for an eminently satisfying 3-2 win.

As opposed to Saturday's hand-wringing 3-2 loss. Coincidence? The result of some pointed discussions inside the San Jose dressing room? A case of Manny being Manny? You could do worse than place a small wager on "all of the above."

The bigger point would be to refrain from using Saturday's game as a barometer for what might happen in the postseason. Then wave goodbye, because the boys are off for a six-game roadie. And blow a kiss to Manny Malhotra, who still has roughly 30 shopping days to make the wrong play for the right reasons.